Second Chance
by MayFairy
Summary: Remus sends off a letter with an address on it before leaving Hogwarts, and comes home to find a Hippogriff tethered outside his cottage and a huge black dog on his couch. Post-PoA reunion. Wolfstar.


**I've wanted to write this for ages, but only just got around to it! Enjoy!**

* * *

Before starting on packing up his various belongings, Remus took a trip to the Owlery to send a very important letter - if a single piece of paper with only an address on it could be considered a letter. It was lucky the place was deserted, but he had been awake from the crack of dawn after waking up in the forest.

His body certainly ached, and his cuts stung, but after the events of the night before he couldn't linger on such trivial matters. Not when Sirius Black was innocent and out of reach of the authorities.

Remus selected a small grey owl and brought it over to the small table in the centre of the room. His hands shook a little as he scrawled the name _Sirius Black_ on the back of the piece of parchment before he rolled it up and tied it to the leg of the owl.

Whether the shaking was from nerves or anticipation or sheer excitement he couldn't be sure, but it was likely a mixture of the three.

He watched the bird fly off into the distance with a miniscule smile on his face. If not for the state his body was in after the rough night he'd had, he might have walked back to the castle with a spring in his step.

He settled for putting his hands in his pockets and taking in the scenery. It was the last time he was going to see all of it for a while, after all, and like so many before him, Hogwarts would always be his real home.

* * *

True to his expectations, Remus arrived home a day later to find a hippogriff tethered outside his cottage and a huge black dog on his couch.

"You got my letter, then," Remus said to the dog, who had perked up instantly upon seeing him, tail wagging madly, "If that Hippogriff eats my chickens, I'll be blaming you."

The dog leapt off the couch and knocked him to the floor, licking him all over his face. Remus let out a tiny groan, at the disgusting nature of the canine saliva and from the jolt his bones had gotten upon hitting the wooden floor of his kitchen. Still, he couldn't bring himself to be cross. Not _now_.

"I'll never admit to saying this, but I've even missed _this_ ," Remus said to his friend, and the sound the dog made sounded like a laugh. The werewolf nuzzled into the dog's fur, both affectionately and as a way of payback by wiping all the excess saliva off onto him. His hand meanwhile stroked the dog gently behind the ears, relishing how despite the years that had passed the dark fur was as silky soft as ever (he tried to think less about the skeleton he could feel so easily underneath it).

The dog finally shifted back to his human form, and Remus looked up at Sirius Black, who was comfortably lying on top of his chest and smiling down at him.

Remus wanted to say something, but found himself just reaching up to brush some of Sirius' straggly hair from his face. The other man, who had also opened his mouth as if to speak, just dipped his head to kiss Remus hard.

Kissing Sirius, after so long, was a joy he had never expected to experience again, even if it wasn't like before. It couldn't be with how fragile Sirius' frame felt under his hands when he clutched at him, or with how it was as sorrowful and desperate as it was joyous.

But they were still Padfoot and Moony. And that was what mattered.

"I'm so sorry," Remus whispered, "I should never have believed you would have done it."

Sirius just shook his head. "They were dark times, Remus. Before James and Lily - I had been worried you were the spy, with how you kept disappearing."

"I had a feeling you thought so. I'd been meaning to set you right, but there was never quite time."

For the first time since he had laid eyes on him again in the Shrieking Shack, Remus noticed how gaunt his friend had become. Gone was the Hogwarts heartthrob. Half mad eyes stared out above hollow cheekbones and skin almost as white as bone. But those eyes were looking at him with the same love and devotion they always had. It was still Sirius. It was still Padfoot.

Remus kissed him again, sweetly, as if it might possibly make up for all the time they had lost to time and Peter's deception.

"I can't stay for long," Sirius murmured, "They'll think to look for me here."

"It isn't a known address, so we have a little time."

Sirius smiled at him, widely enough that that old Sirius that had been visible in his eyes briefly appeared in his whole face. "Saying it's good to see you again, Moony, doesn't nearly cover it." Before Remus could reply, he was being hugged fiercely, and they stayed like that for a long time, embracing on the floor of Remus' cottage and crying for the friends they had lost and the unnecessary separation they had suffered, but also laughing for the second chance they had been given.

When the kissing resumed, it was so full of need that Remus was briefly convinced they weren't going to be moving off the kitchen floor for a long while. But then Sirius' stomach growled so loudly that they were forced to break apart because Remus had started laughing.

"Food first, for you, I think," he said, pushing against Sirius to try and indicate he wanted the other man to get off him so that they could get up.

Sirius, for a moment, looked disappointed at having to relinquish his hold on him, but his expression shifted into intense hunger as they both realised just how long it would have been since he ate anything but rodents and Azkaban food.

"How does pancakes sound?" It required only the simplest of ingredients and meant he could make as many as needed to give Sirius his first proper meal in twelve years.

"Sounds like I've died and gone to heaven, Moonshine," Sirius replied as they stood up, grinning at him in a way that made him eerily resemble his dog form.

Remus just rolled his eyes before turning to the cupboards to hunt down the flour. "I told you never to call me that."

"I think you like it," the other man taunted, "Just a bit. You'd just never admit it."

"If I'd never admit it, why are you trying to make me do so?"

Sirius just laughed and sat down at the dining table. "Merlin, do you know how long it's been since I sat down at a table? The things you take for granted, Moony, honestly. You don't even know your own privilege."

Remus, as a thoroughly bisexual werewolf, shook his head and didn't bother justifying that comment with an answer.

* * *

 **This was really fun to write and I definitely think I'll be returning to do more Wolfstar at a later date even if this has satisfied me for now. Maybe I'll do a look into the time before OotP, and then a super angsty post OotP one to finish. We'll see.**

 **I'd love to know what you thought! Thanks for reading!**


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